The original projected opening date for the sprawling new reservoir in western Riverside County -- Diamond Valley Reservoir -- was this year, but now the Metropolitan Water District is saying the facilities will not be open until March, 2003, when the marina and recreation areas will be completed.
With the lake 2/3s full and 140 feet deep in places that seems like a long wait to allow for shore fishing and perhaps some limited boat fishing access. The huge reservoir, which is located near Hemet, was created by building long dams at the mouths of two valleys that drain off the north end of Black Mountain. The dams block off the Diamond and Domenigoni valleys to create the largest reservoir in Southern California, one that will hold 800,000 acre feet of water when full. It is currently filled with about 570,000 acre feet.
The word is already starting to get out about the tremendous fishery that has been created at Diamond Valley (once called Domenigoni Reservoir and then Eastside Reservoir before the final name was bestowed). Mike Giusti, the Department of Fish and Game biologist on more-or-less permanent assignment as the Diamond Valley fishery and habitat specialist, has had generous MWD funding to create a model fishery at Diamond Valley. The lake has been planted with the purest strain Florida largemouth bass, Florida bluegill, redear, crappie, smallmouth bass, channel catfish, blue cats, and rainbow trout. Silverside minnows and shiners were added as forage for the gamefish, and the results so far have been pretty spectacular.
Before the lake started to fill, a rearing pond was built in the future lake bottom. Broodstock bass to eight pounds were released in the pond and there was a spawn of those fish in 1999. Later that year, as water was pumped into the new reservoir the lake level crested the pond and that year’s spawn of fish had the whole growing lake where they could feed. Those two-year-old fish are now in the 12- to 15-inch range and weigh from two to three pounds. For fish that size, they are chunks.
Giusti likes to point out that the Golden Ruler used by bass anglers to estimate weights would tell you that a 13-inch bass should weigh 1.1 pounds and a 15-inch fish should weigh around two pounds. And that is true at most places. At Diamond Valley, a 13-inch bass weighs right at two pounds and a 15-incher right at three pounds. The eight-pound broodstock bass that was in the pond was recaptured this year, and it weighed 12 pounds, putting on four pounds in just two years.
Giusti said the 2000 year class fish are all 10-inchers, and he estimates the bass population in Diamond Valley is around 300,000 fish already.
“The sampling I’ve done out there is unreal,” said Giusti, who has been taking scale samples from 25 bass per month to chart growth rates. “Four of us on the electro-fisher, which is not the best boat to be fishing from, boated 300 bass in 3 1/2 hours of fishing. Three casts in a row I caught two fish on a the same jerk bait.”
The first trout plants went in during November and December last year. These were subcatchable-sized rainbows. These small fish are classed as to how many of them it takes to weigh a pound. The stocks late last year consisted of six to 15 fish to the pound. By May this year, those trout were in the one to 1 1/2-pound range.
“That gives you some idea of the growth rates were going to see, at least initially,” said Giusti.
It sure would be nice to see the lake open to at least shore fishing this year. Giusti expects the two-year-old bass to be five-pounders by the end of the year. While regulations haven’t been adopted for the reservoir, Giusti is leaning toward a slot limit where two or three bass under 13 inches could be kept by anglers and one or two over 16 inches could be creeled. He’d like a zero limit on the smallmouth bass until they become established and regular limits on other species.
Let’s get this lake open by fall. At least to shore fishing. What do you say MWD?
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